Dress The Part
by Alyndra
Summary: Renee is just helping Kim adapt to her new life as a toff. Why is Mairelon so skeptical of that? Set between the books.


Mairelon wanted to return to London the same way they'd left, walking alongside his market-performer's wagon, and Kim was happy enough to walk, too. Especially since this time, it didn't rain on them . Mairelon had bought her a new boy's outfit before they'd set out from London, but their adventures of the past week had left it already looking worn. Kim thought of it as broken in, though she caught Hutch eyeing all the stains, scuffs and tears, and grumbling under his breath. But they were still so much better than the rags she'd worn when she first met them, it was hard for Kim to feel dismayed. Mairelon certainly didn't seem to care; he continued her lessons in everything from speech and accents to magic: both the stage sleight-of-hand from before, and now the basic theories of how real magic worked, too.

Despite their leisurely pace, the trip only took two days when they weren't always dragging the wagon free of deep mud. It seemed like no time had passed before they were slipping up to Renée D'Auber's salon just after dark. She met them at the door warmly, entirely unperturbed by their manner of arrival, and whisked them off to her guest rooms. Kim's room by itself was bigger and more luxurious than any place she had ever stayed before: a hearth with its own washtub, not just a washstand with a basin, carpet and draperies covering every inch of the floor and walls, and the biggest bed Kim had ever seen in the middle of the room. It was as tall as her waist and could have fit Mother Tibbs' whole crew if they squeezed. It was heaped with more rich fabrics, soft and clean. But Kim was too tired to handle the thought of actually sleeping there; she was covered with road dust, and that enormous thing wasn't for the likes of her. She might drown in all those feather coverlets.

Food was sent up piping hot from the kitchen, but she was drifting off almost before she could properly appreciate it. She made herself eat it anyway, because tomorrow's meal could never be counted on. She knew too well the feel of an empty stomach. Then she found a corner with a good view of the door and the window and lay down in her clothes on the carpet. She was out like a light and didn't wake until dawn was lightening the room, and Renée came rapping briskly at the door.

"I'm up!" Kim called, rolling to her feet, making it true.

"Excellent," Renée said, entering without further ado. She took in the unslept-in bed and Kim standing in her dusty, rough-spun traveling clothes in the corner, but she didn't blink. "Of course, cherie, I came to see if you would like a bath last night, but oh! You were already asleep. But you will like a bath now, I believe." She did not give Kim a chance to confirm whether she would like a bath, which was just as well because Kim was wary of baths, but instead swept on. "And then I think, hm, yes, I may have a dress to loan you that will do. For the moment."

"For the moment?" Kim repeated, still playing catch-up.

"Until your own dresses, they are ready," Renée said, smiling. A maid came in just then, lugging two heavy buckets of water, and poured them into the huge enamelled tub by the hearth.

Up until last week, the only times Kim had been in houses like this was as a thief in the night. She'd mostly gone after the silver, staying to the lower levels of the house and not the upper floors, the bedrooms where the toffs would be sleeping. Even ladies' jewel boxes weren't enough temptation for Kim and the rest of Mother Tibb's crew to risk that lay.

As she watched a whole series of uniformed people with buckets troop through Renée's guestroom so that Kim could be washed clean of her street dirt, it started to sink in — in a way it hadn't before — that her life was going to be different now. _Toffs_, she'd always thought: a little scornful, a little resentful of their good fortune.

But now people were going to look at _her_ and think _Toff_, and not just for a few minutes of playacting, either.

"I just had a bath a week ago," she muttered. "I can use a washbasin."

"Ah, but you should know how nice it will feel, a big warm tub like this all ready for you," Renée said, not unkindly. "Come, we have much to do today, and the sun is already up."

"Where's Mairelon?" Kim asked.

"If we hurry, we will perhaps see him at breakfast," Renée said, testing the temperature of the water with a finger and waving off the maid carrying the final steaming bucket. "But Edward is very eager indeed to make him explain things at great length, so he will be along to collect him as early as possible, before your friend has time to find himself more trouble, a thing entirely likely, no?" She winked at Kim, a joke shared between friends, and it somehow made Kim comfortable enough to take a bath in this room, after all.

* * *

Kim did hurry, but when they got down to breakfast Mairelon had already left with Shoreham, who had called on the house very early indeed.

"No matter," Renée declared briskly. "Today is for the ladies, yes? And we will have our hands full, if we are to make the most of it. Tonight, when you see Richard for dinner, he will see you looking like a lady indeed."

Kim snorted a little. She still couldn't picture herself looking like a lady, but there was a tantalizing appeal to trying. The dress she was in did not fit her very well: too long and too loose in the chest. It was still far finer than even the new boy's outfit Mairelon had gotten her, which already had been finer than anything she'd ever worn. It was still packed away, far less dirtied than her roughspun traveling outfit; when she'd asked Renée about wearing it, Renée had been nice enough to seriously consider it, but in the end shook her head.

"Non, cherie, I think we must show you to people as a girl from the beginning. We mean to go on with it, yes? There will be gossip enough about you as it is. And besides all that, if you do dress as a boy again, likely you will not wish to be recognized. And so if the people you will meet do not think of you in boys clothes ever, it will be so much the better, will it not?"

Kim was forced to admit that there was a great deal of sense to this. But the dress Renée had for her was a soft baby blue, light enough to stand out in the dark like a bedsheet. The fabric kept snagging against the calluses on her hands when she petted it, which she couldn't help doing. It felt like it would tear at the least suggestion, pretty as it was.

"How did you meet Mairelon?" Kim asked. Renée had called him Richard, and seemed friendly with him, but what did being friends look like when you were a toff?

"He was a dashing older college student," Renée laughed. "And I was a impressionable young debutante, ready for trouble. He was very good at magic, and me, I wished to make magic happen."

Kim was staring, fascinated. She realized she was forgetting to eat, and hastily grabbed a sausage. All the food here was fancy and plentiful, and even kept warm. The sausage had spices that Kim had only smelled at the better market stalls.

Renée raised an eyebrow and speared another sausage with her fork. "I was not bad at magic myself, you understand. But," she leaned close, conspiratorial. "I was terrible, then: I pretended to be, so that the best student would take the time to tutor me. Oh, I quite enjoyed his private lessons for _weeks,_ but at last he discovered my deceit, and I'm afraid he has never quite trusted me since." She laughed, low and throaty, a little rueful.

Kim could picture it, a young and impulsive Renée scheming to get time alone with the most accomplished upperclassman. She covered her mouth with her hand but it didn't hide her laughter.

"There, you see? We are all only human," Renée said. "And for you? How did Richard, how did he say, persuade you to come along? It must have been clear he was up to something of mystery, no?"

Kim picked up a silver fork, imitating Renée's movements, and used it to stab another sausage. They were delicious. "I'm too curious for my own good," she said wryly. "Mostly that. And I got no wish to be part of a thieving crew, and that flash cull Dan Laversham had his hooks out for me. Mairelon coulda been sore I got into his locked chest, but he dealt fairer and better to me than he had to."

"You got into his chest?" Renée seemed delighted. "The one with that fancy lock he's so proud of? Oh, my!"

"I got a knack," Kim said modestly. "But I ain't no flat, and I been thinking, it ain't — it won't be much longer I can pass as a boy anymore, and then what?" She shuddered. "So I had an eye for a way out. Mairelon was sharp enough not to let anyone snow him, not even me. Not that I tried. But he kept the skinny toff from stiffing me, and maybe a lot worse than that, when his bully-boy woulda grabbed me."

"That does sound like him," Renée murmured, neatly finishing the last bites off her plate. She cocked her head up. "Ah, excellent timing! I hear horses outside; they have got the brougham ready for us. Come, the day is passing, and it is best to be early to Madame Ester's, especially if we would like a dress for tonight."

Kim had eaten more than she realized while they talked, gulping at first but then slowing down and imitating Renée's careful eating manner. She wanted to stuff her pockets for later, but the dress didn't have pockets, and another glance at Renée decided her against it. She'd been fed regularly and well the entire time she'd spent with Mairelon and now in Renée's house, and if that wasn't enough to override the instincts of a lifetime on the streets to get while the getting was good, she could at least pretend not to be grubby. She looked at Renée watching her and decided to trust in her next meal. "I'm ready," she said.

* * *

Madame Ester's dress shop was as crammed full as any market stall Kim had ever seen, with shelves of fabric swatches lining the entryway. It only opened up in back, to make room for the bevy of women sewing industriously away. Madame Ester herself came out to greet Renée effusively, and Kim found herself being introduced for the first time as "Richard Merrill's new ward, Kim — she shall need any number of new things, of a certainty, and I knew no better person than you…"

"Of course, of course," Madame Ester murmured, eyeing Kim up and down assessingly. Kim might have thought it provoking had she not, after a second, recognized the look: it was the same as the look Tom had, when deciding what clothes would fit a potential customer. Madame Ester nodded decisively. "Mademoiselle Renée, I am honored beyond measure you think so well of my little shop. And it is a very great pleasure to meet you, Miss Merrill."

"The pleasure is mine," Kim murmured politely, mindful of her diction.

"Excellent," the proprietor said warmly. "And how many dresses are we thinking to start?"

"Three, for now," Renée said comfortably. "We must begin with practicalities. A morning dress, a walking dress, perhaps an evening dress. So little, I know. But we may get fancy later on, and in the meantime she must have lovely things to wear for shopping in, yes?"

Madame Ester laughed. "You have always been wondrously sensible, Mademoiselle. Well, Miss Merrill? If you would step over here, please?"

Kim did so, and promptly an entire array of dresses in the shop were held up against her, tutted over, debated, and in the end narrowed down to a mere five to try on. Once Kim had been gotten into and out of all five, she pointed to the dusky blue. "I like this one," she said. "It doesn't get in the way, it's good fabric, and —" she hesitated. What she really wanted to say was that she liked blending into shadows at need, but she didn't know how these women would take that. "— I like darker colors. Not too bright." She gestured at her least favorite of the five, a bright red muslin with a high collar and skirts that constricted her movements.

Renée and Madame Ester looked slightly startled, as though it had not occurred to them that Kim would have opinions about her new wardrobe. Well, just because Kim hadn't ever worn toff flash before didn't mean she hadn't seen others wear it.

"Mademoiselle has an eye for detail," Renée recovered first. "And my! We have been most terribly to blame, to not have asked her opinion before now! What else do you like, cherie?"

Kim threw Renée a grateful look. "Mostly things I can move in, if I need. Not one of them — those — rustley fabrics, either."

Renée and Madame Ester exchanged thoughtful looks. Madame took away the red dress with another of the dresses, and then added two more to the pile. "Darker colors are uncommon with the younger ladies, but I think we may — yes, there. You will try these on, also. We will choose the blue evening dress, I think, and perhaps the brown or the green?"

"Mm, yes, the blue is lovely," Renée said. "And the green, possibly. What about that new grey-and-rose? But Kim shall choose which three she most likes, of course. We shall return this afternoon for the first of them, if it can be ready?" Renée asked.

"Most excellent, of course," Madame agreed. "Kim? If you would try on this for a morning dress, I think the grey rose may suit you very well — you might pass unnoticed until you wish to be noticed, and then it is a very attractive cut indeed…" she winked at Kim, and Kim blushed.

Kim did end up picking the grey rose, and the dusky blue and then the brown walking dress, which was a little plain for Renée, but she laughed and said, "I can see you in it, yes, now that you say… It has an elegant simplicity to it, does it not?"

It was a dress that nearly anyone on the street could wear, especially if the fineness of the material and stitching was covered with a wrap or cloak. Not street rat garb, but middle class, perhaps, if one did not look too close. And on closer inspection, it was as Renée said: the fineness could not be denied, in the cut and the delicate traces of embroidery at the collar and cuffs.

All three dresses were good solid material, fine but not so thin as to tear easily, and not too constricting, either. Kim would have considered any one of them too fine to do anything with but sell, only a fortnight ago. She shook her head; it was hard to believe how her circumstances had changed.

They took their leave of the dressmaker's shop, and returned to the brougham, which Renée directed to take them to a cobbler's. Renée bought Kim a proper pair of slippers on the spot and had her measurements taken for even more proper shoes and boots; after which, they went next door to the hatmaker's, and then on to a whole succession of businesses for what Renée called "the essentials."

Kim had never owned anything like half of what they bought, and never much missed it, either. But just like she listened to everything Mairelon could teach her about different modes of speech, sleight of hand, and now real magic, she drank in everything Renée said about what was fashionable, interspersed with fascinating commentary on where the bounds of propriety could be pushed. Renée could hold an audience's attention as easily as Mairelon did, if she ever felt a whim to take up a magician's stage in the market, Kim grew sure, watching her hands gesture gracefully to illustrate a story she was telling over lunch, which they ate in a tiny cafe where everyone greeted Renée by name. Kim was introduced around more times than she could keep track of.

She did manage to impress Renée a bit, too. It had always been part of her job to pay attention to detail, and the way a toff dressed could tell you a lot about whether his house would be worth cracking. So Kim knew what a lot of the things Renée talked about looked like, even if she didn't know what they were called, and once she started asking for clarification the same as she would in one of Mairelon's lessons, Renée seemed delighted to have so eager a pupil.

At last the sun's shadow's grew longer, and they returned to Madame Ester's shop. The dark blue dress was ready for Kim, and Madame promised that the other two would be available tomorrow at the same time. Kim stood impatiently as they put the dress on her once again, tugging it into place to make sure the fit was good, one seamstress tightening up a seam with her needle right as Kim was wearing it.

"Very good, most well done!" Renée clapped her hands at last. "You are beautiful, cherie — do look in the glass!"

Kim had been too busy keeping an eye on all of the people touching her — or close enough they might touch her — to give much thought to how she looked. The entire day had been a far cry from her habit of avoiding casual touch, adopted to protect the secret that she was a girl. Shop assistants thought nothing of grabbing her hands, arms, or feet and putting them where they wanted them. It made Kim want to flinch and maybe even hit people, but she'd so far been able to keep those instincts from embarrassing her. It took concentration, though, to keep from reacting to all the hands reaching out for her. "Sorry?" she glanced up at Renée.

"Look in the glass, there," Renée said gently.

"That will do, give her some space," Madame Ester instructed her flock, and suddenly they all backed off and Kim could breathe. Slowly, she turned her head where Renée pointed.

A highborn lady stared back at her, wearing the same dusky blue dress that had gone over Kim's head. Her hair was still short, but it was clean, curled, and pinned, with a plumed hat tilted over it, and the new petticoats and other underthings made the shape of the new dress look exactly as it was meant to: properly womanly, even without any help from her still boy-thin body. Bronze scrollwork highlighted the bodice, while the skirts had insets of a darker blue. And her face, after their last stop at the face-paint shop: Renée's delicate hand had applied colors far more subtly than Kim had thought possible, especially compared to the bawdy women she usually pictured when she thought of such paints — her face looked like a lady's, too. Kim lifted a hand to the image; her reflection lifted one back at her. It was really her.

"Beautiful, as I said, cherie," Renée said, appearing in the reflection over Kim's shoulder. She put an arm around Kim's shoulder; Kim didn't startle, too fascinated watching both their reflections in the glass. They looked like they could belong together, two women from the same household, socializing in the same circles.

Kim shivered. "Can I wear it home — I mean, back to your place?"

"I do insist on it. I am far too tired to wait while they put you back in the other one, which does not suit you half so well in any case," Renée laughed. "Come, it is more than time for us to return; I cannot imagine Richard will allow himself to be shut up in Edward's office very much longer."

* * *

The groom who met the brougham told them that Mr. Merrill had indeed returned not ten minutes ago, accompanied by the Earl of Shoreham, whom he had invited to dinner.

"Very good," Renée said. "Between us, Richard and I shall endeavor to keep Edward from talking shop all evening. Perhaps Kim will assist us, yes?"

Her, keep an Earl from anything? Kim laughed because she didn't know what else to do. "Is he going to want to talk to me, too?"

"I cannot imagine anyone would _not_ want to talk to you, my dear," Renée teased her, and Kim blushed.

"That's not what I meant!" she protested, but they were both laughing when they came through the doors.

The two men were still standing in the entry hall, absorbed in talking; Mairelon's familiar, good-natured face looked up first. Everyone was calling him Mr. Merrill or even Richard, but Kim couldn't get used to thinking of him as either: the names seemed to represent a strange toff, someone Kim had no business even speaking to, and not the friend she'd spent a week on the road with, having to put their shoulders to heaving the wagon out of the mud together every mile or so for half that time.

Mairelon smiled at Kim, but the man next to him spoke first. "Renée! So good to see you again! And with a friend — I don't believe I've had the pleasure, Miss...?"

The Earl of Shoreham — Kim would have recognized him just fine, even without the groom's information — was smiling at Kim, but without a hint of recognition, at least until Renée clapped her hands in delight. "Oh! It is too perfect!" she cried. "For here is a man in charge of Britain's spies and magical investigations of all manner of unsavory things, and a mere change of clothes convinces him he has never seen a face before! Do you not remember being introduced, this very month?"

"Well, I never," the Earl began, then caught Mairelon's poorly suppressed amusement. "Et tu, Richard? And now you devils are going to make me guess, or I'll never hear the end…" He peered at Kim as they came closer. "Why, you're Richard's new apprentice Kim, of course! That dress suits you a damned sight better than boys clothes did, my dear." He swept her a bow.

Kim managed a dizzy curtsey back, suddenly grateful for learning to do it like a toff: yet another of Mairelon's lessons on stage performing she was grateful for.

"You should see your face, Edward," Mairelon chuckled. "Welcome back, Kim. I hope your day was reasonably interesting." He glanced at their packages, plainly betraying skepticism that a day spent shopping could have been, but Kim didn't take offence.

"We had a grand time," she said loftily, then grinned. "And wasn't it worth it? Look!" She spread her skirts again, and gave a happy twirl.

"Hm, yes, well." He coughed. "Perhaps not a complete waste of time."

"Oh! Me, waste my time!" Renée sniffed. "Monsieur Richard, you go too far with these jokes! Kim looks as fine as any lady you ever saw, and you will not deny it."

Kim could see a glint of a smile as Mairelon protested, "But I said nothing about how she looks, did I?"

"Exactly!" Renée pointed at him. "Your new ward stands before you on perhaps the first day in her life she has ever worn a dress, and you do not fall at her feet after I — I! — have spent the entire day to make her shine like the stars. It is beyond all things!" She clasped Kim's arm and spun away. "Come, cherie, let us away from these men who do not appreciate fine company. They would rather dine without the pleasures of ladies at the table, it does seem to me."

"No, no," the Earl protested instantly. "You are both visions of loveliness, and I for one would never dream of not appreciating your genius, Mademoiselle Renée."

"Very well," she allowed, turning half back. "Dear Edward is not entirely a boor."

"What would you have of me?" Mairelon grinned. "Kim, you look wonderful. Renée, thank you for your efforts on her behalf today."

Renée sniffed. "It will take a week at barest minimum, of course, to outfit her properly, and longer if you will be in London this year for the Season, and if she will be coming out…"

Mairelon looked mildly alarmed. "Oh, I would hate to impose on you so long," he said. "Actually, that brings me to news I had from my brother Andrew today; it seems the house in Kent is in better shape than he thought, and we are free to move in right away, if we wish to."

"Oh!" Renée did not look delighted to be relieved of hosting them so soon. "But what about the Season?"

"You know I've never cared much for parading about so many parties," Mairelon apologized. "We can head down to Kent as early as tomorrow morning, if Kim is amenable. Kim?"

"Already?" Kim asked slowly. She had thought she would have more time with Renée, while Mairelon spent his days talking to the Earl of Shoreham. "But don't you still have more questions to answer?" she asked, glancing at the personage in question. "It sounded like it was to take more than one day, I thought."

"I can always come up from Kent to meet with him," Mairelon waved a hand, dismissing this. "There's no pressing great rush."

"None except getting all the notes from this adventure logged before you start off on a new one," Shoreham said dryly. "I shouldn't have expected you to stick around any closer to a Season than you must, I suppose, Merrill."

Was that it? Should Kim refuse to hurry out of town, if it was only for such a silly reason? But everyone here had already been so generous to her. She didn't know all the reasons Mairelon had for wanting to be gone, but she wouldn't argue. "I guess," she said. "Tomorrow would be fine."

"Good; that's settled," he said. "We'll be out of your hair before you know it, Renée."

"Oh, nonsense, you are no bother to me at all, Richard," Renée said with some asperity. "Except when you refuse to explain yourself, or are otherwise extremely dense, that is to say. But you should know, you and Kim are both welcome in my house, together or separately." She looked at Kim for the last bit, as though to make sure she heard.

"Thank you," Kim said, genuinely touched. It didn't feel like Renée offering her kindness just for Richard's sake, anymore, not if Renée was offering to let her stay even without him. "I had the best time with you, today," she blurted.

"That's what I'm afraid of," Mairelon grumbled, but he had a little hint of a smile, not unlike the one Kim had seen earlier when she showed off her new dress. Renée's invitation warmed her heart, but Kim knew that wherever Mairelon went, that was where she wanted to go, too.

She was pretty sure this wouldn't be the last she'd be seeing of Renée, though. One way or another.


End file.
